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Cohen: France under Macron won’t change position on Karabakh conflict

Despite the fact that France has always supported Armenia, Paris won’t change its position on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after Emmanuel Macron’s becoming France’s new president, says Ariel Cohen, senior fellow at the Institute for Analysis of Global Security.

In general, France’s policy in the South Caucasus doesn’t seem to be changed, according to Cohen, who is also the founder of International Market Analysis Ltd. and director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics.

He believes that the Macron administration will hold more anti-Moscow position than any of the previous administrations.

The course of independence of the three South Caucasus states will be a priority for France, he noted.

Cohen believes that Macron’s administration is also going to have strong relations with Germany and the US.

Emmanuel Macron won 66.1 percent of the vote against 33.9 percent for far-right leader Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election, final results from the Interior Ministry showed on Monday. Macron received a total of 20,753,797 votes, compared with 10,644,118 for Marine Le Pen, the ministry announced the day after the landmark election.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.